When he heard another crack, Seb jumped again. But he hadn’t felt it through his feet. Another look down at the rock. The darkness of their surroundings made it difficult to see where the cracks had formed. Although the two deep snaps told him he should be able to see them by now.
The third crack snapped like a whip. It definitely didn’t come through the ground. He looked across the lake. Right there, next to the fat pulsating queen, sat the scorch mark from where he’d shot the blaster. Tendrils of cracks stretched away from the blackened point of impact. They grew as he watched them, lurching off from the centre.
Seb stepped back a pace while the other two fought the beasts. He kept his eyes on the rocks above the queen.
Before his back hit the wall, the ceiling above the queen collapsed. A heavy shower of large rocks landed on top of her.
The battle in front of him halted as the queen popped like a water balloon. Clear liquid burst away from her in a thick spray of pus. Thankfully Seb couldn’t smell it. The sight alone snapped his stomach tense.
The pink beast closest to them looked at Bruke and SA. They both kept their fists raised, but they didn’t attack it. It shook its head and its red eyes suddenly turned yellow. It stared in curiosity at the two before it looked past them at Seb.
The creature’s cheeks then bulged and it vomited in front of them. A thick grub fell from its mouth and landed on the rock outcropping. Dead. Limp.
When the pink beast looked up again, all of its rage had left it. Passive inquiry stared at them now rather than fury and the desire to destroy.
A ripple effect ran away from the first creature, the other pink beasts all vomiting at different times. Dead and limp grubs landed on the ground and fell into the water. The ones Seb could see all looked the same. They glistened with the bile of the pink creatures.
One by one, the pink beasts looked over at Seb and the others with yellow serenity.
Seb felt both SA and Bruke look at him as he watched the creatures. A glance at one and then the other before he shrugged. “I’m guessing we got the queen, then?”
Before either answered him, Seb looked down at the reading on his screen. When he saw the timer, he gasped, the sound of it echoing through his helmet. “We have ten minutes to get out of here.”
Although Seb and the others tried to step forward, the creatures moved across to block their way. The calm and inquisitive stares now looked more resolute and assertive. They weren’t moving. Seb and the other two had killed many of their kin. They might have been naturally passive, but the looks on their faces suggested they wanted retribution.
Chapter 71
The sound of hundreds of the pink beasts broke the water’s surface one after the other. “All this,” Seb said as he remained where he stood, pinned in by the creatures, “and now they’re going to tear us apart. Don’t they see we’ve freed so many of them?”
Neither SA nor Bruke had time to react to his words before the creatures parted in front of them. Several of the large brutes floated in the water right by the stone ledge.
“What are they doing?” Bruke said.
Seb could only shake his head as he looked at the bobbing beasts. They were lined up as ships would in a dock. “I don’t know. They don’t look like they want to attack us.”
When Seb tried to walk away from the lake in the direction of the path alongside the river, one of the pink-skinned brutes blocked his way.
“But they don’t want to let us go either,” Bruke said.
It took for SA to walk forward for Seb to see their intention. As she headed in the direction of the creatures in the water, the ones on land gave her an opening to pass through.
Both Seb and Bruke watched her step onto the back of one of them. It moved forward with her and another one replaced it next to the stone platform.
“They want us to ride on them?” Bruke said.
“It would seem so.”
“You think we should?”
“SA does, and that’s good enough for me.” Seb walked to the lakeside and stepped onto the back of another one of the creatures. It shifted forwards a few metres so another could come in behind for Bruke.
The creatures had long enough necks for them to raise their heads from the water. SA gripped around it, so Seb and Bruke copied her.
The second Bruke—as the last one to do it—held on, the creatures took off up the river.
Because of the tight river and their large bodies, the creatures moved in single file back the way the three friends had come from. They moved so fast, the sides of Seb’s containment suit flapped in his ears and he had to grip on hard. If he lost his concentration, he’d be at the bottom of the river in seconds, and his radiation protection would run out.
The journey would have taken most of their ten minutes had they done it on foot. When they jumped off the creatures at the end of the river, Seb looked at his visor. He had eight minutes left.
Before they could leave, each creature dropped their head and nuzzled their passenger.
“I think they’re thanking us,” Bruke said with a laugh as his creature nearly knocked him over.
Seb couldn’t help but smile when he tickled his one beneath the chin.
As one, the three beasts trumpeted their thanks at Seb and the others before they disappeared beneath the water and vanished back down towards the underground lake.
Clearly giddy from the experience, Bruke said, “That was amazing.”
But they didn’t have time for that. They could discuss it later. Seven minutes left before Seb’s suit became ineffective. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s get out of here.”
Chapter 72
The second Seb got clear of the hole, his radiation reading changed. “It’s doubled my time,” he said. “What about you two?”
“I have forty minutes now,” Bruke said.
“I only have fifteen,” Seb replied. “What about you, SA?”
SA held both hands up to show ten, closed her hands and opened them again.
“Twenty minutes?” Seb said.
She nodded.
He had been in the water longer than her. “Well, even fifteen should be enough. Come on, let’s get out of here.”
The blue and red bracken and tumour trees took on a different meaning now Seb had seen what fed them. No doubt poison ran through the forest like it did the river beneath it. It seemed okay for the pink creatures, but the thing that sustained a lot of the life here appeared to also poison it. He shuddered to think of Moses. An apt comparison.
“I feel bad for the ones we killed,” Bruke said as they moved through the forest at a fast march.
Seb sighed. “Me too.” When he looked at SA, she didn’t give much away. “But we had to. And you know what? If we hadn’t killed them, we wouldn’t have got to the queen down in the lake.”
“That’s true,” Bruke said.
“And think of all the ones we just saved by taking down the queen,” Seb added.
Although SA had led for most of their journey through the woods, Seb overtook her towards the edge and stepped out into the barren desert first.
A second later, SA and Bruke joined him.
The three of them stood there for a second and stared out at the red wasteland. Seb shrugged. “Where the hell’s the tank?”
Chapter 73
Eight minutes wouldn’t get them very far in the expansive desert. It would take them hours to walk back to the hangar, and the Shadow Order’s shuttle now existed as a twisted wreck somewhere in Carstic’s wilderness.
“That’s it, then,” Seb said, throwing his hands up in the air before he sat down on the hard ground. “That’s the end of that. After everything we’ve been through, and we now have no way of getting back to the hangar.”
“What do you think’s happened?” Bruke said as he paced up and down, shaking his head.
“She’s woken up, hasn’t she.”
“And left us?”
“I can’t imagine she knew what else to do.
She probably couldn’t remember anything from when she was under.”
“But we tied her up,” Bruke said.
Seb let out a laugh. It died as quickly as his hope had. “Have you not met Sparks? I’d imagine she’s back at the hangar right now, looking for a ship to fly herself off this cursed planet.”
Bruke’s shoulders slumped and he turned his head to the side. “You think?”
“She wouldn’t have known we were still in the forest. What else could she do?”
Bruke sighed and sat down next to Seb. A second later, SA did the same. Seb and the other two stared across the arid wasteland, the bright sun slightly dulled because of the yellow tint to his visor. He shook his head. “What a way to go.”
Chapter 74
Seb watched another minute of his radiation timer tick away. Four minutes left. He sighed again. If he had to go out like this, he at least wanted SA to know how he felt about her.
Just as he turned to her, the loud roar of a vehicle came at them from across the desert. As one, all three of them looked up to see the tank tearing towards them. The vehicle shook as it travelled over the hard and bumpy ground.
The tank hurtled towards them at what looked like full throttle before the vehicle turned sideways, skidding to a halt. A second later, the door at the back opened.
Bruke jumped to his feet and ran into the vehicle first. SA looked at Seb like she knew he’d wanted to say something.
Seb stood up, held his hand down to her and then showed her the way with a sweeping arm gesture. “Ladies first.” He’d tell her what he wanted to another time.
Just before Seb followed SA into the back of the tank, he looked at the forest one last time. After shaking his head, he smiled to himself and walked into the vehicle, his legs burning with exhaustion, his entire body made of lead.
The door closed behind them as Sparks spun around in the driver’s seat and smiled. “Why did you tie me up?”
“You don’t know?” Bruke said.
The familiar purple glow lit up Sparks’ eyes and she laughed. “I’m guessing it has something to do with that thing I threw up?” She pointed at the ground.
Seb had nearly stepped on it. A grub—small like the ones that crawled from the people in the mines—lay dead on the floor of the tank.
“Now strap in,” Sparks said. “I’m going to get us out of here.”
It felt great to sit down. It didn’t matter how hard the bench, Seb sank onto it and leaned back against the wall of the vehicle. The grubs had been taken down and his friend had returned. Everything else would be just fine.
Chapter 75
The front window of the tank showed Seb they were closing down on the hangar. Sparks could fly any of the ships to get them out of there. He leaned forward and picked up the dead grub she’d vomited out. It still glistened with bile.
When Seb sat back, he saw both SA and Bruke staring at him. “What are you doing?” Bruke said.
“Wilson said he thought the grubs were dropped on this planet on purpose. I’m inclined to believe him. I want to take this in case it gives me any clues.”
“Do you really believe that?” Bruke said.
“Ruthane’s worth a lot of money. Wilson said that where there are credits, there’s often corruption. I think he’s right. I don’t think his ship going down was an accident. And if it wasn’t, I owe it to him and his family to find out the truth. After all, they gave us the information that saved Sparks.”
A shake of his head and Bruke sat back in his seat. “I’m too tired to think about it.”
“Me too,” Seb replied. “But I’m not too tired to forget about it.” He held the grub up. “If I take this for now, I can look into it when I get the time.”
The hangar doors opened up as they got close to it, and Seb looked down at the reading on his screen. Just three minutes left. “You think we can get out of here soon, Sparks?” he said. “My radiation suit won’t last much longer.”
“Don’t worry,” Sparks called back at him. “I’ll have us off this planet in sixty seconds. Get ready to change vehicles.”
Seb smiled at his friend. “Although you’re a little rat, I’ve missed you. I’m glad you’re all right.”
Sparks threw the hand gesture he’d seen from her in the past. One of these days he’d have to ask her exactly what the insult meant.
End of book four.
Fugitive - Book five of The Shadow Order
Email: [email protected]
Edited by:
Terri King - http://terri-king.wix.com/editing
And
Pauline Nolet - http://www.paulinenolet.com
Cover Design by Dusty Crosley
Michael Robertson
© 2017 Michael Robertson
Fugitive - Book five of The Shadow Order is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, situations, and all dialogue are entirely a product of the author’s imagination, or are used fictitiously and are not in any way representative of real people, places or things.
Any resemblance to persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
Chapter 1
Once Seb arrived at the end of the corridor, he leaned against the cold metal of the grey wall. Gunmetal grey, it showed a total lack of aesthetic ambition for the place. Not that it needed to have thick carpets and velvet walls, just something a little less depressing would have been nice. The wall didn’t feel unbearably cold to touch, but something about it penetrated his psyche with its stark chill. Bright strip lighting ran along the white ceiling, highlighting his barren surroundings. The fact that he currently had his attention on Moses did little to warm him up.
In front of the simulation rooms, the faces of twenty or so rookies looking at him, Moses walked up and down the line. With wide, confident strides and dramatic arm gestures to show his enthusiasm, he filled their heads with the Shadow Order’s bullshit rhetoric.
“The Shadow Order keeps the universe in check,” he said. “We save planets, sometimes from outside threats—sometimes from themselves. We’re the people others come to when no one else can get the job done.”
As Seb watched the large shark-like creature, his stomach tensed and bile rose in his throat. He tightened his jaw and fought against his urge to go out there and call Moses out on his lies. The Shadow Order existed to line Moses’ pockets. To do that, he needed to inspire the next influx of grunts to put their necks on the line for him.
Only small, but firm enough to be uncomfortable in his pocket, Seb absentmindedly fiddled with the dead grub from Carstic. The one Sparks had vomited up in the tank. The creatures had somehow gotten onto the planet. There had to be a way to find out exactly how. Although he couldn’t rule them out as indigenous to Carstic, something about their last mission hadn’t rung true. He owed it to Wilson and his family to find out for sure, and until he knew the answer, he couldn’t do another mission for the Shadow Order.
Seb only heard the footsteps when they were directly behind him. His world slowed down as he spun around, but before he balled his steel fists, he saw her and relaxed. “Sparks?”
“I’ve been looking for you.”
“Well, here I am.”
The small Sparks stood no more than three and a half feet tall. It must have been clear to her that Seb had been spying on something. She clung on to him and peered into the training room to see what he was watching.
After a few seconds, Sparks stepped back a pace. Her purple eyes narrowed behind her glasses. She clearly trusted Moses as much as Seb did. “What’s he saying to them?”
“The usual crap. It’s all about how great the Shadow Order are and how altruistic their in
tentions.”
“He’s not mentioned the large amount of credits yet?”
“What do you think?”
When Sparks didn’t reply, Seb looked out again. Amongst the rookies he saw the Hispanic woman who’d piloted the mech he’d fought against before their last mission. Moses had called her Reyes. She sat on one of the wooden benches, shoulder to shoulder with what looked to be equally incompetent teenagers and early twenty-somethings. Despite only being a few years younger than him, they looked like kids. Fresh-faced and wet behind the ears. Would Moses have sent Bruke out on a mission with her? Surely he just did it to bait Seb so he would go to Carstic. It had worked too; he couldn’t have taken the gamble. What if he’d called his bluff and Bruke had gone out? No way would he have returned if she’d been leading the mission.
“Do you think you’ll ever like him?” Sparks said.
“Moses?”
“Who else?”
“No. Do you?”
She shrugged. “We might have to work for him for a long time.”
“I don’t have to do anything.”
A twisting of Sparks’ features showed him she didn’t strictly agree with that.
“I’m not anyone’s bitch, Sparks.”
Sparks raised her hands, showing Seb her palms and long fingers in defence of his aggression. “I didn’t say that.”
“What are you saying, then?”
“Just that when he needed to get you going out on his behalf last time, he managed to find leverage. He’s as cunning as they come and doesn’t have a compassionate bone in his body. That will always out trump you because you’re better than he is.”
The Shadow Order - Books 1 - 8 + 120 Seconds (The complete series): A Space Opera Page 77
